Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which has historically been the most common configuration to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Old-time country band The Lotus Eaters perform at the Our Community Place plant sale.
Image: Everettlillyandmountaineers
Image: Mountairyfiddlersconvention
Image: MBOTMA Festival 2008
A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances are part of a broad spectrum of dances known by various names: country dances, traditional dances, folk dances, barn dances, ceilidh dances, contra dances, Playford dances, etc. These dances appear in over 100 different formations, of which the Square and the Longways Set are by far the most popular formations.
Modern Appalachian square dancing
A square dance in Montreal, Quebec in 1941
Quadrille variation involving five couples dancing at a Colonial Ball in the Albert Hall, Canberra September 2016 (sepia)
American-style square dancers performing outdoors in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany in 2014